MY 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

[amy030]

A Nightmare on Elm Street   (1984)

A Place in the Sun   (1951)

All About Eve   (1950)

All Quiet On The Western Front   (1930)

Anastasia   (1955)

Back to the Future   (1985)

Basic Instinct   (1992)

Beauty and the Beast   (1991)

Best Years of Our Lives   (1946)

Breakfast at Tiffanys   (1961)

Bullets Over Broadway   (1993)

Cabaret   (1971)

Cape Fear   (1991)

Casino   (1995)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof   (1958)

Capricorn One   (1978)

Changeling   (2008)

Chicago   (2002)

Cocoon   (1985)

Crocodile Dundee   (1986)

Death On The Nile   (1978)

Dinner at Eight   (1933)

Double Indemnity   (1944)

Duel   (1971)

East of Eden   (1955)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Educating Rita   (1981)

Falling Down   (1993)

Fargo   (1996)

Final Destination   (2000)

Flowers in the Attic   (1987)

Frances   (1981)

Fried Green Tomatoes   (1991)

Gone With the Wind   (1939)

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Grease   (1978)

Great Expectations   (1941)

Halloween   (1978)

Hannah and Her Sisters   (1986)

Hostel   (2005)

Imitation of Life   (1958)

It Happened One Night (1934)

It's a Wonderful Life   (1946)

Jaws   (1975)

Jezebel   (1938)

Lake Mungo   (2008)

Love Finds Andy Hardy   (1937)

M   (1931)

Make Way for Tomorrow   (1937)

Metropolis   (1927)

Midnight Express   (1978)

Mildred Pierce   (1945)

Miracle on 34th Street   (1947)

Misery   (1990)

Muriel's Wedding   (1994)

My Fair Lady   (1964)

Ordinary People   (1980)

Philadelphia   (1993)

Psycho   (1960)

Raiders of the Lost Ark   (1981)

Rear Window   (1954)

Rocky   (1976)

Secrets and Lies   (1996)

Silence of the Lambs   (1991)

Sister Act   (1992)

Sleeping Beauty   (1959)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Somewhere in Time   (1979)

Stand By Me   (1986)

Strictly Ballroom   (1991)

Sunset Boulevard   (1950)

The Adventures of Robin Hood   (1938)

The Enchanted Cottage   (1943)

The Goonies   (1985)

The Grapes of Wrath   (1940)

The Labyrinth   (1986)

The Letter   (1941)

The Little Princess   (1939)

The Lovely Bones   (2008)

The Others   (2001)

The Pawnbroker   (1964)

The Picture Of Dorian Gray   (1945)

The Purple Rose of Cairo   (1985)

The Queen   (2005)

The Road   (2008)

The Shining   (1981)

The Sixth Sense   (1999)

The Spiral Staircase   (1945)

Thelma and Louise   (1991)

Titanic   (1997)

Tootsie   (1981)

Uncle Buck   (1989)

Vertigo   (1958)

War of the Roses   (1988)

Waterloo Bridge   (1940)

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?   (1962)

What's Eating Gilbert Grape?   (1994)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?   (1966)

Wizard of Oz   (1939)

Wolf Creek   (2005)

[amber-eyed-girl]

There's a few on there I haven't seen (mostly the more modern ones).

Love All About Eve, A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Double Indemnity, It Happened One Night, GWTW...the list goes on.

[amber-eyed-girl]

You mentioned Flynn and Bette Davis...

She kiboshed him as Rhett Butler. He was seriously considered, and put forward as Rhett to Bette Davis, who was offered Scarlett.

She said "over my dead body".

Negotiations with her studio fell apart, she couldn't do Scarlett, but Errol was out of it.

I don't see her as Scarlett but all of America did.

I think Errol would have made a decent, but different Rhett.

[amy030]

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@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
You mentioned Flynn and Bette Davis...

She kiboshed him as Rhett Butler. He was seriously considered, and put forward as Rhett to Bette Davis, who was offered Scarlett.

She said "over my dead body".

Negotiations with her studio fell apart, she couldn't do Scarlett, but Errol was out of it.

I don't see her as Scarlett but all of America did.

I think Errol would have made a decent, but different Rhett.

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Oh, that's an old story Davis used to tell for decades to save face but it's not entirely accurate.  She said Jack Warner bought her the rights to the book before she left for Europe to break her contract in 36. The truth is, Selznick optioned Mitchell's Gone With The Wind when it was still in galley form. All the major studios had dibs on it but there was no way a cheap-skate studio like Warners would pay the $50,000 asking price on an unpublished book. Only the independant Selznick studios risked it. Later when MGM would only loan out Gable for half the movie's gross profits, Selznick did consider Flynn for Rhett Butler and Warner offered Selznick a package deal with Davis thrown in as Scarlett, De Havilland as Melanie etc... but the truth is, Selznick didn't think Bette Davis had sex appeal, his same criticism of Katharine Hepburn in the role. Also, in 1938, Davis appeared in Jezebel which was more or less trying to cash in on the "hooped skirt" craze and while Jezebel is a great movie, Davis basically plays Scarlett O'Hara in that so she did her dash completely. Also, Gable refused to work with her. He like pretty co-stars and thought Davis was also difficult. No, I feel even if Davis had been cast, the moment Selznick clapped eyes on Vivien Leigh, it would have been all over red rover. Vivien Leigh is the only actress of the era who had the ability and energy of Bette Davis but also great beauty and sex appeal. She was basically Davis but better and Davis knew this. I am not a fan of Gable but I think he was good in the part. I can't imagine Flynn going to all of the trouble Butler did, for a girl. He would have left her in rags at Tara, impregnated Mammy and hitch-hiked a carriage out of there with the first handsome soldier 😉

[amber-eyed-girl]

I know she said that about the rights and it weren't true...and it was to save face...but popular American opinion saw noone else as Scarlett...so Selznick, at a desperate and loose end, did go into talks...

Selznick didn't think she had the looks, but that she could act...but you are right, he never thought she was right.

But...everyone in America would have seen it for her...oh hang on a minute, they still went and saw it 🙂


I don't agree with you about Mammy. She wasn't svelte.

Hepburn would have been dire.

[amy030]

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@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
I know she said that about the rights and it weren't true...and it was to save face...but popular American opinion saw noone else as Scarlett...so Selznick, at a desperate and loose end, did go into talks...

Selznick didn't think she had the looks, but that she could act...but you are right, he never thought she was right.

But...everyone in America would have seen it for her...oh hang on a minute, they still went and saw it 🙂


I don't agree with you about Mammy. She wasn't svelte.

Hepburn would have been dire.

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Yes, over 50 percent of American audiences wanted Bette Davis to play Jezebel. In temperament she would have been perfect however I always felt, that despite her acting plaudits, she tended to exaggerate and ham her performances and Scarlett called for a sexy covertness that won over every man she met. Bette Davis couldn't help but create conflict on scren whereas Scarlett liked causing trouble behind the scenes. If memory serves, the first line of GWTW is "Scarlett O'Hara was not pretty." However her behaviour and the way every body reacts to her in the rest of the book belies that line so Selznick made the right choice. With Davis the film would have become a Bette Davis vehicle, as it would have with Joan Crawford, Lana Turner and every other star name of the time. I still think it was risky and very silly of Selznick to give the part to a virtual unknown - it could have been a disaster and it was just his luck he found Vivien Leigh was the perfect actress. Had anyone else played the part the movie would not hold the reverance it does today - casting is everything as implies to most classic films I guess. I couldn't imagine Vivien Leigh as Margo Channing in All About Eve either.  (Incidentally, Davis was offered the stage role of Blanche du Bois and the film version before Vivien Leigh who won her second Oscar for the role)

[amber-eyed-girl]

"Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were."

Beautiful is different to pretty...she was described in the book in ways that would be pretty...the eyes, her figure, the way she used her dimples to good effect 🙂

and charm is the key. Vivien Leigh had the kittenish charm Scarlett had. Bette Davis didn't.

[amy030]

Oh, you just had to google the line and show me up didn't you!

In that case, the line could apply to Bette Davis and more so than to Leigh who was indisputedly beautiful. She's my favourite actress, who's yours?

[amy030]

I meant over 50 percent of audiences wanted Bette Davis to play Scarlett, you're right.

[amber-eyed-girl]

I have the book you know! 🙂

and I knew it was beautiful...that kinda sticks 🙂

Well, can't imagine anyone else in the role.

OK.

Favorite actress...tough one.

I'd say either Vivien Leigh (who really could act) or Gene Tierney. She never overplayed a scene.

There's a scene in the Razor's Edge where the author is criticizing her lack of ethics and morals, essentially, and there's a line she says like "I thought that was the one thing you did like about me" referring to her beauty, and he capitulates...it's priceless.